It Begins Here
by Monomania
Summary: Sixteen years after graduating from Hogwarts, Draco Malfoy has been put on trial for the murder of an old student. Please read and review!


Email: gryffindorgirl@ihateclowns.com  
Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling wrote the wonderful Harry Potter series. I cannot claim anything in those books as even remotely my own (well, no duh).  
Author's Notes: It's been SUCH a long time since I've finished a fanfic of any kind. I don't know if this one is any good, but I've decided to post it anyway. Rated PG-13 for a little angst and about a sentence of sexual content. Oh, and if you want to flame me, go right ahead, because I don't care in the least.  
  
~~~~****~~~~  
  
It Begins Here  
Written by the one with the pen name of Asamoya Kirameki  
  
She circled me, eyes like sapphire burning into mine. "Mr. Draco Malfoy, I presume?"  
  
"Who else would I be? I AM the one on trial," I said, my lip cirling into its usual sneer. She fixed her intense gaze on me, but she didn't scare me. Hah! As if a lousy witch like her could ever intimidate a Malfoy, even if she did have an excellent figure. I found my eyes flicking down her body, taking in the voluptuous chest, the curvaceous hips, the long, graceful legs. She ignored me.  
  
"Do you realize the seriousness of what you have been charged with?"  
  
I stared at her contemptfully. What was she trying to do, appeal to my non-existant conscience? Was she trying to make me feel BAD about being evil? "Of course I do. Do you take me for a nitwit?"  
  
"Of course not. Mr. Malfoy, where were you on the night of the murder of Neville Longbottom?"  
  
"At my old home, playing wizard's chess with my father," I said automatically. "He's quite old now, you know. He likes his son to drop by every once in awhile." Yes, that's it, Draco. Play the nice, caring son. They love that.  
  
"Can you recall who won, Mr. Malfoy?"  
  
"My father. It pleases him when he wins, so I let him have the game."  
  
"What did you do after that?"  
  
"Listened to the wizarding news, then went to my old bed to sleep. I'd had a long day at work, so I was feeling tired, and father likes a quiet house after he goes to sleep."  
  
"Where do you work, Mr. Malfoy?"  
  
"I'm head of Potions at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, ma'am."  
  
"Would you say that your students like you?"  
  
"I'm sure that they have a... deep-down fondness for me, ma'am."  
  
"Did Neville Longbottom work with you?"  
  
"In fact, he became the new Herbology teacher at Hogwarts a few years back, a little while after I got my promotion to Potions master."  
  
"Did you get along?"  
  
"Well, ma'am, not really. He never did like me very much."  
  
"Explain."  
  
"Well, you see, dating back to the times when I myself attended Hogwarts, I had a long-standing feud with his friends, Harry, Ronald, and Hermione." My eyebrows involuntarily narrowed as the names came into my mind. "My favorite teacher, Professor Severus Snape, was the person he was most afraid of. It goes without saying that he wouldn't like me too well."  
  
"So do you think he held a grudge against you?"  
  
"I'm positive of it, ma'am. I never hated him, but he did seem to have quite a loathing for me. I did everything in my power to try and show him that I meant to be friendly, but he never listened."  
  
"Would you have had any reason to kill Neville Longbottom that you can think of?"  
  
"No, ma'am, not one. I wouldn't kill someone because they hated me." I repressed a grin.  
  
"I have no more questions, Your Honor."  
  
"You may return to your seat, Mr. Malfoy," the judge said. I rose from the witness stand and stepped back to my seat with dignity, my long black robes gliding over the hard floor. As I took my place, I could hear whispers behind me, as the people who were on my side talked about what I had just said.  
  
I smirked to myself. That trial had been almost too easy. I couldn't believe that witch had been stupid enough to fall for all the bull that I'd fed her. Of course I'd killed Neville Longbottom. If you even knew me a little bit, you'd know that I was obsessive over darkness and what other people called evil. I personally liked Lord Voldemort's way of thinking: there is no good or evil, there is only power and those too weak to seek it. I was one who wanted power, who would do anything to get power. Staying out of Azkaban was the first step in going about doing it.  
  
Ever since Harry Potter had managed to do away with my Lord at the end of our seventh year of Hogwarts, I had been subtly carrying out Voldemort's unfinished work. That git Harry had killed him before he'd had a chance to reinstate his power. I'd been planning on becoming his favorite Death Eater, much more favored than my father had been. *I* wouldn't have been unfaithful to Voldemort when he was destroyed. I would have been continually by his side, forever serving him, forever carrying out the wonderfully twisted, ruthless plots that he so cleverly devised to rid the world of the weak. I bullied the majority of my students, the Gryffindors in particular, and I gave all my support and help to the Slytherins of the school. They were the ones who had the potential to do great, important, glorious things in the world. Someday I would find the next Voldemort, the next genius from Slytherin who would bring destruction and chaos to Muggles, Mudbloods and sickly purebloods alike. Someday, Harry Potter, I thought to myself, you will meet your match in a boy half your age. Someday I will train that boy to become a great evil-doer, a twisted fiend who will outwit you and kill you. Someday, famous Harry Potter, you will be overthrown, and I, as the new Lord's mentor, will be his most important helper. I resisted the urge to rub my hands with glee. Life would be sweet once I got out of this horribly Muggle-like courtroom. Soon I would return to my life's work, and soon I would find the person I was looking for. After all, darkness couldn't be stopped, and sooner or later it would pop out again and create a devestating wound on the world. It would happen soon, I knew it. Very, very soon indeed.  
  
I pulled myself out of my thoughts, glancing around the room. The gorgeous lawyer was interviewing another witness, a man by the name of Gary Woodstravel. Another weakling. I gave a small sigh, drumming my fingertips on the polished wooden table in front of me. He was droning in a monotone voice, recalling what he had been eating for supper the night I killed Neville. What an old fartbag, to quote the word often used by Muggle children. The only clever thing that a Muggle child ever said. A nice, descriptive word. I loved describing things, especially in exquisitely horrific detail. I could recall the frightened, appalled faces of one of my first year Potions classes, a Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw double class, as I explicitly explained what the Acid Burn potion did to your body as it ran through your veins. Those same Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws were in sixth year now, and they were still afraid of me. Ahh, the joys of teaching. I never got tired of instructing fuddy-duddys, because they were the easiest to scare.  
  
The last witness left the stand, and the judge called a recess to let the jury decide my case. I sat back in my chair and let my mind drift away to some beautiful place where I was torturing Potter mercilessly. A malicious grin spread over my face as I pictured putting the Cruciatus curse on Potter, his legs doubled up, his face contorted with hideous pain, a high-pitched, girlish scream escaping his lips...  
  
"Draco?" That was my lawyer. He had done quite a good job for me indeed, but I was annoyed that he'd interrupted my daydream.  
  
"What do you want?" I snapped.  
  
"What do you think the jury will decide?"  
  
"You broke my concentration for a question like THAT??"  
  
"Yes, well, I..."  
  
"If you can't think of anything more intelligent to say, don't even bother trying to talk to me. I HOPE you did your job well enough that I don't get to be escourted to Azkaban by the Dementors." I turned my face away from him, and he fell silent.  
  
Fifteen minutes passed, in which I revelled in the luxury of my dream world. I had just finished making Hermione throw herself into a pot of my own formula for an elixer of Excrutiating Death when the judge banged her wooden mallet-like object on her judge's stand. Another beastly Muggle tradition. I straightened up and ran fingers through my hair, trying to look as interested and innocent as possible.  
  
"The jury finds the defendant guilty of the murder of Neville Longbottom."  
  
A loud mutter ran through the crowd. I could feel a familiar flame of anger roar to life inside me, bursting out of my mouth in an unplanned yell. "What?? You can't do this to me! This is injustice! This is an outrage! Why, I oughta..." I reached my hand into my cloak, but the judge had her wand in her hand in a second.  
  
"Don't try anything, Mr. Malfoy," she drawled, seemingly amused. "You don't want to spend your first days in Azkaban recovering from a Stunning Charm, now, do you?"  
  
The anger would not be quelched so easily. With a great, bellowing roar, I sprang from my chair, picked it up, and threw it against the wall with all my might. As splinters littered the ground, I overturned the table, then knocked my lawyer out of his seat and smashed HIS chair against the wall. People began screaming and dashing out of the courtroom, and as a flood of people scurried out the door, two more creatures entered a side door. I suddenly yelled and ran to the far side of the room, then attempted to exit with the crowd. Hands shoved me back inside, and I was left in the room, empty except for the judge and...  
  
The Dementors.  
  
Hideous hands seized my robes as I bellowed and writhed, thrashing about all over the floor. The Dementors took no notice of my fit and dragged me along the floor and out of the courtroom. One of them opened their mouth and slowly began to breathe in, and suddenly I could feel a depression, an overwhelming sadness, flood through my body. That, combined with my anger, was enough to make the darkness swirl around me as my head dropped in a dead faint.  
  
********  
  
So. Professor Malfoy had been caught. I twirled my quill in my fingers as I sat back on my bed, thinking over the day. Of course his capture was all anyone had talked about. The teachers were SO shocked and appalled, even though most of them had taught Draco in his earlier Hogwarts years and knew how evil he really was. After all, he'd only been thirty-three. Even Dumbledore, who must have been in his 100s by now, was still Headmaster. I wished the old git would die already.  
  
Professor Longbottom had been somewhat of a scatterbrain, anyway. He'd known his Herbology, but he tended to lose things and be very disorganized. And, of course, he was almost a Squib. I'd had no respect for him after I'd found that out. Professor Malfoy was a pureblood, from an old wizarding family. He'd had a sinister sort of intelligence, and he and I had bonded immediately.  
  
Even though I was in Slytherin, I had the best marks of all the third years in the school, quite possibly of everyone in the school. I was slated to become a prefect in fifth year, and maybe even next year, if they could get the rules stretched for me. I knew I had the brains to carry out the things that Professor Malfoy had discussed with me only last week. I think he thought so too.  
  
I placed my quill on my pillow, then pushed back the green drapes that surrounded my bed and headed for the door. If I was going to continue Malfoy's work, I would need to start some research. And, as far as I could see, there was no better time than the present to begin.  
  
Lord Voldemort, master of the Underworld, I will do your bidding, always and forever. I am faithful, I am loyal, I am entirely your servant. Together, we will triumph.  
  
It begins here.  
  
~*~  
  
AN: Please review!!! 


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